A Fitness Website and Internet Marketing Guest Post by Shingo Suzumura
Did you know you only have about 5 to 6 seconds before people decide to leave or stay when they first visit your site?
Some say you only have 2-3 seconds to grab a viewer’s interest or they’ll never return – it’s friggin’ harsh, but at the end of the day there will always be a fine line between a sale and no response at all.
Let’s say you paid Google $100 to advertise your site. The ad brings 100 people to your site, and 1 person signs up (“1% traffic conversion”).
Do you have any idea how to improve it?
Online experts have been putting more and more emphasis on improving traffic conversion rate, but how exactly you make the improvement has not been made clear and a lot of web designers, even those who know the ropes, fail to give a site what is needed to really help your online sales.
As the founder of SZ Creative Solutions and Director of Operations at Fitness Website Formula ( where I work with Chris and Bedros) I have helped hundreds of websites succeed online, and have I found again and again that these simple conversion principles work…
- Impression – Immediately capture and build up the audience’s interest
- Connection – Create an emotional connection with the audience and make it super easy for them to take action
Here are 3 little ways you can “tweak” your site to get more people to stay and gain more business leads from your site…
1. Design Your Site Header with Purpose
A header is one of the most important elements of your site. It’s like the front of your house – communicating to your visitors about your identity, character, and purpose. This is especially important for first-time site visitors.
- Have your designer model your header after headers like these below: Make 3 to 4 variations and show them to all of your clients and colleagues and get feedback on it. It takes a good understanding of your market and consumer psychology to come up with a professional header that leaves a good impression on the audience.
- Keep it short and clear when you state what your site is all about: For a blog, keep your header short because your repeat visitors want to dive right into the content. And for a regular site or salescopy site, keep it as short as possible and include a call to action like this below:
2. Make Your Copy Shine
You probably already know the importance of having killer copy that pulls in the audience’s heart and soul… there are several ways to make your precious copy standout and build excitement towards your objective (sales).
Here’s some tips…
- Work on your attention grabbing headline and make it prominent at the top of your site.
- Create an emotional connection with effective use of graphic images.
- Did the picture of a woman with guns above grab your first attention? In a similar way, gorgeous before and after client pictures and high-energy workout video/action photos can really “validate” your copy into the audience’s minds.
- Here’s a simple one… A good contrast between the foreground of your page (white) and the background of your site (dark blue or black) will keep the audience focused on your copy.
3. Emphasize a Single AT (Action Trigger)
On your sales pages are you giving too much information and asking too much of your audience – leaving them overwhelmed and not knowing what to do (i.e too many links, confusing layout, etc)?
If possible, build your page based on a single primary purpose – clearly state exactly what you want your prospect to do.
You’d need a clear and strong call to action (sign up message, order button, etc) and an effective method(s) to capture your audience’s information.
Quick Test
If you want to know your site really sucks or rocks, try a test like this to a group of people:
1. Give a hypothetical case:
“You’re looking for a personal trainer online, but you’re not sure who comes recommended. What do you think about this trainer?”
2. Show your site or sign up page for 5- 8 sec and immediately close it.
3. Ask these questions:
A. “What is the most important information on this page?”
B. “What is the page about?”
C. “What is the page asking you to do?”
When the quality of your site is good, it will fire more neurons in their brain and it leaves a strong impression, registering in your prospect’s memory that much longer.
You must convert your audience to make a sale – don’t spend a lot of money and time on getting traffic to your site and not improve your traffic conversion.
The best approach I know to display a product or service and crank up your conversion is a style called “Direct response website”.
Live Examples
Dan Go’s salescopy site makes the audience want to read how they can benefit from bootcamp and contact him:
http://www.gogirlbootcamps.com/
He went from getting 1-2 leads a month to 2-3 leads a day through his site almost immediately after we helped him.
And check out Jonas’s queeze page… it makes it enticing for people to give an email address and learn more about his services:
http://www.neworleansfatloss.com/
In 7 months, he got 300 subscribers from traffic JUST from a few little facebook ads.
His stats are…
Avg. monthly subscribers: 37.5
Conversion: 4.26% (industry avg. 2%)
Even if your homepage serves multiple tasks, you can incorporate direct response to a certain degree, but that’s a little more advanced.
If you want to learn more about the benefits of direct response websites, check out The Fitness Website Formula by clicking here
To Your Success,
Shingo
P.S. If you want me to take a look at your site and give you my honest advise, just shoot me a comment below
Shingo Suzumura is a web designer and you can learn about him on his online marketing blog, he is also head of operations for the Fitness Website Formula, where he builds kick ass client getting sites for fitness professionals, like Chris McCombs, Craig Ballantyne, Dan Go, Steve Hochman just to name a few
If you want a website that gets and converts a TON of traffic… then you’ll wanna get a site made the FORMULA team
The #1 trusted service when it comes to building sites for fitness pros
Awesome post! Love it!
Where or how can you make those ebook covers to put on the website?
Hey shingo can you check my site and let me know what you think?
Shingo,
Great post!
It was excellent meeting you in Florida.
Thanks for the great tips.
Rick Kaselj
http://www.ExercisesForInjuries.com
.
I'm also starting a website for my studio,I hope to aquire your service to build my site.I currently use mindbody business system.647-637-5086.
Shingo,
Thanks for the case studies and tips. We rank high for some good keywords, but I am pretty sure our conversion rate is vastly underperforming. I would appreciate you taking a look at the site.
Thanks,
Dean
HTTP://getfitnhbootcamp.com
Hey Shingo, I contacted you in the end of 2009, about creating a website in portuguese for brazil. I got my website up and running but really think I could use the converting machine of Fitness Website Formula.
If you could please check it out, and let me know how can you guys help me convert more!
Here's the link:
http://www.movimente-se.com
Great post,
It's funny how you know this stuff but need reminding from time to time… Thanks will make some changes!
Shingo,
great post, Thanks for the great information you gave out. Looks like you guys make some killer sites. If you could take a quick look at my site I would appreciate it.
thanks,
Hi there Shingo!
I loved this post, really informative stuff and it's speaking to me loud and clear! I purchased a pre-made website from a company in September, they provide the skeleton of the site with a site builder for me to go into and edit content. I don't have much space for photographs so I have included just a few, but I think that I could really benefit from your advice, if you have time.
My email address is http://www.personaltrainerinbelfast.co.uk
Thanks again,
Donna
Good morning (in socal
)!
@Fred You got it! Shoot me what you are looking for & I'll get it going for you:
http://www.sz-solutions.com/blog/contact/
@Mike hey Mike thanks for asking! My first impression is that there are lots of wasted spaces – you have to scroll down quite a bit to find out what services you offer. And b/c of this reason, most people leave your site right away. Also, I couldn't find your site anywhere on Google and Yahoo – is this a brand new site? The FWF can sooo help you with this kind of stuff.
@Rick, I'm so happy you remembered me
See you in Irvine this time?
I like the clean look of your site. I'd bring more energy to the header. Also, I noticed that your prime real estate (Optin form) has a layout issue.
You can fix it by adding "position:relative;" to the CSS of the #body_right div and adjust the position of the #optin-container div. You might get a higher optin rate that way.
@Louxley You're the man – let's bring more biz to your site
Shingo,
We need some help with our site. We just aren't getting any customers from it. Can you take a look and see what we need to change?
Thanks,
Allan
Great Info. Thanks for the ideas.
Keep it up,
Brian
.
Shingo,
Thanks so much for taking a look at my site and giving me that tip.
I got my blog guy working on it.
I won't be at the Fitness Business Summit. My focus for 2010 is work on my info business. If there is another Fitness Info Summit, I will be there.
I will work on bringing some energy to the header.
Thanks for the second great tip!
Rick Kaselj
http://www.ExercisesForInjuries.com
.
Thanks Shingo, Wow – this is great advice – I really don't know where to start!
I had a friend design my website and I know it needs a lot of work – particularly with the call to action.
Would you mind having a look and letting me know what you think?
Thanks a lot!
Kat
WOW! I you could hear me, you'd hear me saying that with all of these AWESOME comments!
@Dean, You're right LOL
Organize information better – it's hard to follow. Need more emotional connection and stronger call to action. Love the background though.
Btw, How's your slider optin working for you?
@Carlos, Yes I remember! Let's start with your header -"the machine" power is much needed there LOL.
http://www.sz-solutions.com/blog/contact/
@Keith – glad you like it. Let me know if you need help.
@Jamie, your site has a great potential – individual elements are great, but I feel like the information is all over the place. Adding a dark background color to differentiate from the page foreground should help you almost immediately.
@Donna Hi Donna! Love your comment – I'll email you my feedback. I'll do my best.
@Studio Nine – Hey Allan. My honest opinion… I think your site would look good on post cards, but everything about it is too static. I think you would benefit from our program A LOT. Do you have any question about our program?
http://www.fitnesswebsiteformula.com/
@Brian – Thanks man. I know you didn't ask but… try adding some "visual" social proof such as testimonial photos and videos and making white space tighter. It's amazing sometimes how small changes can have a great impact on the end result.
@Rick – you're welcome! Next FIS for sure
@Kat – Nice meeting you. Is your homepage really serving many tasks? One of our clients, Sam owns a 7 figure studio with a variety of services/teams, but he still benefits a lot from a direct response style website. http://www.fitconcepts.com/about-us.html
So, I'd definitely consider doing a direct response website but since you are in UK, we need to keep your site some what looking like a regular site. If you shoot me an email, maybe we can discuss your options more.
THANKS!!!
Shingo
Awsum post, thanks again and again and again!!
Shingo, Great Post! Thanks. I have use FWF with 4 of my websites. They are all great and converting really high. With just using facebook ads ($20 a day budget), and a simple squeeze page with a video opt in, I am getting 80 clicks with 10-15 opt-ins! That is 12-15% opting in! If you are considering getting a website or redoing your old, definitely go with Shingo and FWF!
Hi, Looking through your website i definately like the way your websites look and feel. Any comments you could make about mine http://www.peakoutdoorfitness.com would be great.
Thanks.
Matt.
Peak Outdoor Fitness
Hey Great Post. I love the information.
Thanks,
Brian
@Matt, Of course! I like the 'edgy' look of it, but I wonder if the design is really serving your market… I'd make your header more condensed – it's taking up a lot of space. Also, I see that you are using iframe to embed your blog (which can be a great SEO tool), but unfortunately Google cannot crawl through it – if possible, I'd move your blog to .com/blog/. Overall, I think it needs more "call to action" and "AT" I mentioned in the post.
@Jeff, Thanks for your outstanding comment – it's great working with you Jeff! I'm glad to see your sites keep growing and growing.
Hey Shingo,
Just had some work done to my site, let me know what you think http://www.ExplosiveFootballTraining.com
Converting 2 – 3% but would love more.
Thanks,
Steve
Hi Shingo,
Just had some work done to my site, would love your opinion.
http://www.ExplosiveFootballTraining.com
Converting at 2 – 3%, at the moment.
Thanks
I had my website done in dreamweaver – cna I convert that to wordpress?
Hey there Steve, I just saw your comment… Sure! I'll dive right in…
So, it looks like your site got most of the key elements of a really engaging blog, but here is my list of recommended tweaks you can make to help increase your conversion:
1) Header could be designed more efficiently – taking up a lot of space. Also, the tagline "The Ultimate Way To…" is the most important wording in the header—> Needs to be more prominent. You can refer to the "Design Your Site Header with Purpose" section above for some ideas.
2) Include an ebook cover graphic on the optin box to more visually draw attention of your audience – it would be easier to know what they are subscribing for.
3) Also, I recommend doing a video or picture of yourself pointing to the form with arrows.
4) The "Football Training Workouts" tab is your most important page… I will make it somehow stand out more in the navigation bar. Plus, creating a banner between posts so its featured better and its easier for people to go to your sales page would help your overall conversion.
Hope this helps…talk to you later… Thanks!
Shingo
Camille, wordpress is so much easier to work with. Any seasoned web designer or developer should be able to convert your site easily. If you need my help, let me know – http://www.sz-solutions.com/blog/contact/
Very nice post Shingo and I might as well ask would it be possible to check out my site too? This is just a WP theme that I liked but am happy to make any suggestions to change it.
Your time is much appreciated.
Regards, Clayton
Adelaide Personal Trainers
Hi Shingo,
Would appreciate if take a look at the site I just built. So now how do I get the traffic?
http://www.balancedbodyfitnessnc.com
Thanks,
Lisa
Thanks a ton…I'll pass those on to my web guy.
Really appreciate it, Shingo.
Nice post Shingo. It's hard to strike a balance between all the factors that go into such web sites. I'm a designer myself but trying to think more about marketing. Also trying NOT to make my site look like every other marketing site out there.
Be most grateful if you could take a look! it's just a flat image at the moment, need to make it work when i have time:
http://www.threecoaching.com (still needs a decent header… ?)
I would love to hear what you think of my site not just the landing page but the rest of the site. Thank you Camille